Generalized Thom spectra and their topological Hochschild homology

Abstract

We develop a theory of R-module Thom spectra for a commutative symmetric ring spectrum R and we analyze their multiplicative properties. As an interesting source of examples, we show that R-algebra Thom spectra associated to the special unitary groups can be described in terms of quotient constructions on R. We apply the general theory to obtain a description of the R-based topological Hochschild homology associated to an R-algebra Thom spectrum.